DEATHMOON (1978) **

I have a soft spot in my heart for ‘70s Made for TV horror movies.  Even though they usually turn out crappy, there’s something about the kitschy clothes, the staid production values, and casts full of familiar television faces that is something of a comfort to me.   The same goes for werewolf movies.  I’ll watch just about anything that’s got an actor with crepe hair glued to his face.  I’ll be the first one to admit that Deathmoon is not good, but I’m still glad I watched it.

Robert Foxworth stars as an overworked businessman plagued by bad dreams.  His shrink tells him he needs a vacation, so he goes to Hawaii for some rest and relaxation.  While at his resort, he hits it off with a fellow vacationer (Barbara Trentham), but seems to have a pesky habit of turning into a werewolf whenever the moon is full.  How can he find romance when he’s busy at night giving the other guests a nice Hawaiian Munch?

I think this might be the first Hawaiian werewolf movie in cinema history.  While Deathmoon is far from the quality of the old Lon Chaney films, I can’t exactly fault everyone in the cast and crew for taking a paid vacation to Hawaii to make this flick.  In fact, it feels like the screenwriters changed up the werewolf lore just so they could scam the studio out of a free trip to Hawaii.  Instead of gypsies, caravans, and pentagrams, we have Polynesian dancers, luaus, and tiki statues.  Okay, sure.  Whatever gets you a free Hawaiian vacation, buddy.

I’m used to seeing Foxworth with a beard, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to see him turn into a werewolf.  The werewolf make-up isn’t bad either as it looks sort of like the Paul Naschy version.  Unfortunately, we don’t see a whole heck of a lot of it.  You also have to wait a long time before Foxworth finally turns into the werewolf, but on the plus side, it’s a pretty good old-fashioned lap-dissolve transformation scene.

The supporting cast includes Jake and the Fatman’s Joe Penny as the hotel’s house detective and Welcome Back, Kotter’s Debralee Scott, who takes a Made for TV shower.  I like Penny and all (I’m a confirmed Riptide fan), but his subplot eats up a lot of screen time.  It’s almost like he’s angling to turn the production into a backdoor pilot for a supernatural Hawaiian detective show.  (Would that make it HOWLwaiian Five-O?)

I wanted to like Deathmoon more than I did, but the slow pacing ultimately sunk it for me.  The padding in the form of musical numbers by the house band at the resort were especially time consuming.  While the transformation during the final reel is a winner, the finale itself feels rushed, which is strange since it seemingly took forever to get there. 

GLASS TRAP (2005) **

Directed by Fred Olen Ray (using his “Ed Raymond” pseudonym), Glass Trap is kind of like a loose remake of the 1977 Made for TV Movie, Ants.  The big difference is that this time, the ants are giant-sized killers.  The setting is different too as the ants invade a luxury skyrise and not a swanky country club.  However, both films rely heavily on ‘70s disaster movie tropes, so even if it isn’t remake in the truest sense, it would at the very least make a good double feature with Ants. 

Like any good (or in this case, middling) When Animals Attack flick, there are parts that rip off Jaws.  (There’s talk about the ants’ “bite radius”.)  We also have the gratuitous Die Hard homage where are cast have to crawl around in a ventilation shaft.  There’s one touch that only Fred Olen Ray would put into a movie like this, and that’s the scene where the ants disrupt a lingerie photo shoot on the roof of the building.  Sadly, this is strictly a PG-13 deal, so Ray doesn’t stray into the T & A antics of his “Bikini” franchise.

The supporting cast is pretty decent.  In fact, they are more entertaining to watch than the killer ant stuff.  Stella Stevens is the most fun as the wisecracking magazine editor who says stuff like, “Screw you, Jiminy Cricket!” while smashing ants with a golf club or giving ultimatums like, “You can go with me or you can stay here and become ant food!”  Brent Huff (as a thief), Andrew Prine (as the sheriff), and Martin Kove (as the cigar-chomping soldier of fortune brought in to kill the ants) also make the most of their sparse screen time.  Fans of Ray’s stock company of reliable regulars will enjoy seeing Peter Spellos (as the owner of a nursery) and Richard Gabai (as the coroner) popping up too.

C. Thomas Howell stars as the ex-con janitor hero.  You’ve got to feel for Howell.  One moment, you’re working with Francis Ford Coppola in The Outsiders and the next, you’re getting knocked unconscious by a wooden duck in a Fred Olen Ray movie. 

The ants are a combination of rubbery special effects and CGI and they’re pretty good, all things considered (at least when compared to its Syfy Channel counterparts of the era).  The sound effects they make are pretty annoying though.  (It sounds like someone typing furiously on a keyboard.)  Also, despite the PG-13 rating, there’s still a rather gnarly skeleton reveal. 

It moves along at a steady clip, I suppose.  However, a lot of Glass Trap is really dumb.  Like the fact that the ants are scared of heavy metal music.  Or the female federal agent who faints every time she sees a dead body.  You’d expect that shit from a movie in the ‘30s, but it seems pretty condescending in a modern film.

I’m not going to try to burn Glass Trap with a magnifying glass or anything, but it certainly isn’t a classic of the Killer Ant genre by any means.

AKA:  Insects.

COMBAT SHOCK (1984) *** ½

Buddy Giovinazzo made his directing debut with this audacious, jaw-dropping, and hella depressing drama that is sure to surprise many viewers.  His brother Rick stars (and did the music) as Frankie, who comes home from Vietnam suffering from PTSD.  Broke and out of work, he lives in squalor with his nagging wife (Veronica Stork) and mutant baby.  (That Agent Orange will play hell with your ability to reproduce.)  His friends are junkies, the city is filled with crime, and there seems to be no way to claw himself out of the living hell he finds himself in.  To make matters worse, Frankie begins having Nam flashbacks and starts having trouble distinguishing them from reality. 

Combat Shock was released by Troma, and while it does contain its share of gore and grossness, it’s unlike their usual fare.  It feels like someone took Taxi Driver, Eraserhead, Platoon, and Deadbeat at Dawn, tossed them into a blender, hit the PUREE button, and then smashed it into a million pieces with a sledgehammer.  Despite the obvious influences, it still manages to find its own unique voice. 

This is one bleak, nightmarish, and offbeat movie.  It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.  You know it’s not going to end well, and you feel disgusted and helpless the whole damned time because you’re powerless to stop it, but you just can’t look away.  Not for a second.

Sure, there are some stretches that go on a bit too long.  Some of the side business with Frankie’s junkie pals and other assorted street urchins could’ve probably be trimmed back a bit.  However, whenever the film is mining Frankie’s nightmarish psychological state, it’s gripping stuff.

After this film, Buddy tried to get a Maniac sequel starring Joe Spinell off the ground, which unfortunately never got made.  After that, he only had sporadic credits, and that’s unfortunate because as evidenced here, he has a distinct cinematic vision.  Rick promptly gave up acting after this film and went on to do music for big budget studio movies.  (That should come as no surprise because the music here is excellent.) 

AKA:  American Nightmare.  AKA:  After Vietnam.

LOVELY BUT DEADLY (1981) ***

When her brother dies of an overdose, a high school cheerleader named Lovely (Lucinda Dooling) wages a one-woman war against the drug dealers that control the school.  No one wants to prosecute the head honcho, the awesomely named Mantis Managian (Rick Moser) because he’s the captain of the football team.  Lovely jumps into action to take him down and quickly learns he’s just a small fish in a big pond.  The real crooks are a pair of local businessmen who are in cahoots with (gasp!) Lovely’s square boyfriend (Mark Holden)!

Lovely but Deadly is anchored by a great performance by Lucinda Dooling.  It’s a shame she only had a handful of acting credits because she is spunky, likeable, and fun to watch in this.  She really gives it her all, and her earnestness is only matched by her enthusiasm, which is infectious. 

Basically, what we have here is a teenage white girl version of Coffy.  What it lacks in style (it looks like a TV movie), it makes up for in fun.  Despite the subject matter, Lovely but Deadly is more goofy than exploitative.  Take for example the great scene where three thugs steal swords and masks from the high school fencing team and fight Lovely in shop class.  Or the scene where she gets jumped by her fellow pep squad members in the locker room.  Or the big catfight that takes place at a swanky catered costume party (an obvious nod to Coffy). 

It also moves at a relatively brisk pace, which certainly helps.  Although the laughs (intentional and otherwise) become sparser as the film goes along, the big speedboat chase has a great punchline.  You can’t take a second of it seriously, but you’ll probably have a big grin on your face the whole time.

The supporting cast is full of familiar faces.  We have Judd Omen and Irwin Keyes as henchmen, Marie Windsor as Lovely’s aunt, Linda Shayne as a teen, and Richard Herd and Mel Novak as the villains.  It’s really Dooling’s performance that ties it all together.  Whenever she’s front and center karate-kicking drug dealers, Lovely but Deadly is a lot of fun.

DR. MINX (1975) * ½

Dr. Minx is part of an unofficial trilogy from director Hikmet (AKA:  Howard) Avedis that also includes The Stepmother and The Teacher.  All three films revolve around an older woman seducing a much younger man.  Unfortunately, all of them contain way too much plot that gets in the way of the business at hand. 

The always lovely Edy Williams stars as Carol, a doctor whose ex-boyfriend Guss (William Smith) is a total lout.  He figures Carol owes him half of her inheritance and he isn’t above blackmail to get his hands on the loot.  Meanwhile, she falls for one of her patients, a young man named Brian (Randy Boone) whom she nursed back to health after he had a bad tumble on his motorcycle.  Problems arise when the kid kills Guss in a struggle and Carol coerces him into hiding the body. 

The movie wastes no time getting down to business as the opening scene features a totally nude Williams wrapped around Smith in a post-coital embrace.  Then, like The Stepmother and The Teacher, Avedis bombards us with a bunch of dialogue scenes, subplots, and other unnecessary bullshit that takes away from the main crux of the story:  Namely, finding ways to separate Edy from her wardrobe.  Even the sex scenes that occur later in the film are only lukewarm at best.  To make matters worse, Avedis’ awkward camera placement and non-existent editing don’t do much to liven these scenes up. 

There is a little bit of a feminism slant here.  It’s almost comical the way that her male patients gawk at Edy in disbelief when they find out she’s a doctor.  Naturally, she is more than eager to prove that she is just as capable as a male physician.  Even this welcome subplot is dropped almost immediately as it’s introduced in favored of the lame film noir plotline. 

Williams’ bubbly personality, plunging necklines, breathless line readings, and likeable performance is the best thing the movie has going for it.  Too bad the plot-heavy sequences prevent her from demonstrating her bedside manner.  It’s always good seeing Smith turn up in a ‘70s sleaze fest.  He makes for a formidable villain, as you might expect, and his absence is felt once his character is killed off. 

Ultimately, Dr. Minx is more of a noir thriller than a drive-in skin flick.  That wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so fucking dull.  I will give credit to Avedis.  He made the movies he wanted to make with just enough exploitation elements in them.  That way, the studios could play up those angles in the trailers and lure in unsuspecting viewers.  (He even did this in later films like Mortuary, which had a completely different ad campaign that featured absolutely no footage from the movie itself.)  This bait-and-switch is a good way to get a film made, but it’s a bit of an irritating experience for the viewer to say the least.

If things played out the way the ads would’ve had you believe, Dr. Minx would’ve been a classic.  Imagine all those naughty nurse movies, but you know, with a doctor instead.  Too bad all the murder plots, blackmail schemes, and superfluous characters (like the best friend who fancies himself an amateur detective and cosplays as Columbo) gum up the works.

DISCO BEAVER FROM OUTER SPACE (1979) **

National Lampoon made this special for HBO the year after Animal House.  It’s sort of like a less successful, shot-on-video version of Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon.  (Either that, or a dirty version of Saturday Night Live.)  Even as a fan of lesser-quality National Lampoon movies, this one is pretty tasteless and stupid, but it does contain a handful of big laughs.

A (off screen) couple settle down to watch cable TV.  They start watching Disco Beaver from Outer Space before the guy starts flipping channels.  The commercials, TV shows, and movies he flips through make up the bulk of the picture.

Disco Beaver from Outer Space is horribly dated and politically incorrect to be sure.  People will probably be most offended by Dragula, the gay vampire.  The lone special guest star, Vanessa Redgrave (how they got her to appear in this is anybody’s guess) plays Vanessa Van Helsing, who repels the Count with Brute, meatloaf, and pictures of Lloyd Bridges.  Other slipshod and unfunny bits include “Misterpiece Theater” and scenes of a country band playing while British cowboys critique their performance.

There is some good stuff here though.  I think my favorite bits were the testimonials of a Perrier junkie (the White Claw of its day) who is up to “six bottles a day”.  There’s also a game show called “The Breast Game” which is a good excuse to show a bunch of boobs.  (“Stay tuned for You Bet Your Ass!”)  The video cable guide offers a few laughs too, and the puppeteer (who is essentially a dirty version of Senor Wences) should’ve had more screen time. 

The Disco Beaver himself seems like a forerunner to the gopher in Caddyshack.  He’s basically there to dance and act like a goofball, which is sort of charming I suppose.  At least the filmmakers were smart enough to keep his appearances brief.

Ultimately, Disco Beaver from Outer Space is crude, sloppy, and all over the place.  It’s much closer in terms of quality to the later-era National Lampoon movies than the classics like Animal House and Vacation.  On the plus side, it’s less than an hour long (thank God).  It’s best viewed as a curio piece, although those who are easily offended will want to steer clear. 

AKA:  National Lampoon Presents Disco Beaver from Outer Space.  AKA:  National Lampoon’s Disco Beaver from Outer Space.

TERMINAL FORCE (1995) * ½

After a long, slow moving opening credits sequence (that’s only there to help pad out the running time), the plot begins.  Resistance fighters lose a battle to the evil Kyla (Richard Moll) who steals their sacred crystal.  With his dying breath, the resistance leader tells his sister (Brigitte Nielsen) that another crystal resides on Earth.  She beams herself down and tries to find it with the help of a nerdy archeologist (John H. Brennan) who just so happens to be on the run from the Mob.

This cheap looking sci-fi action flick steals ideas (and dialogue) from Star Wars and The Terminator.  The special effects are mostly terrible, but I did like the bit where the little kid morphs into a stop-motion assassination droid.  Once the action switches over to Earth, things get rather dire rather quickly.  There’s just too many subplots that gum up the works and get in the way of the main story.  The scenes involving the pair of detectives, played by Roger Aaron (Action Jackson) Brown and Cindy (Tron) Morgan, eats up a lot of screen time, and all the stuff with the mobsters was totally unnecessary.

Nielsen does as well as can be expected with the material she’s been given.  She looks good wearing her leather space garb (one character says she looks like Barbarella), but unfortunately, she is saddled with an annoying and wimpy archeologist sidekick who brings the whole movie down.  I usually like Moll when he’s playing the villain in cheesy sci-fi junk like this, but he’s pretty uninspired here.  Sporting long hair and a beard and wearing an armored cloak, he looks like a biker who works part time at Medieval Times. 

Director William Mesa provided special effects for Army of Darkness (which explains the random appearance by Sam Raimi as a sniveling, cowardly resistance fighter) and later directed the Mark Dacascos flick, DNA.

AKA:  Galaxis.  AKA:  Starforce.  AKA:  Final Force.  AKA:  Galactic Force.  AKA:  Star Crystal.